February 04, 2005

Easy to read

On Fridays, I have lunch with my beautiful, smart, wonderful daughter. She's in college but her campus is within walking distance of mine so on Fridays, she walks over from Snowstorm University to the campus where I work. It's funny to see her on my campus, sometimes interacting with my students, to have my home world and campus world overlapping in that way.

She meets me in my office and I will often stop to say something to a colleague or student on my way out. After the brief interaction, she and I will walk on and she will give me her capsule version of the interaction.

"Well, clearly you don't like Colleague X, but you know you have to work with her so you are overcompensating by acting all friendly."

or

"You are trying to be nurturing and supportive of that student because you want to encourage him, but secretly you are wondering why the hell he chose that project."

The amazing part is that her quick characterizations are completely on target every time.

"Wow," I said to her today, "Am I that transparent?"

She shrugged: "Yeah, you are."
She added: "Of course, I know you pretty well."
Then she laughed. "And besides, I'm smarter than most people."

For what it's worth, I have a hard time when my home life and work live intertwine -- when my Spouse visits me in my building. I stumble around all out of sorts and confused. I'm glad your experience with work and home coming together is more pleasant.